One lesson everybody needs to learn here is that judges have a lot of power, and it is within their discretion to exercise it. Most judges will treat you well and with respect as long as they feel that you are doing likewise. That doesn't mean they will rule in your favor if you are wrong, it just means they won't take you out to the woodshed.

The worst thing you can do in court is make a judge think you have no respect for him / her or the system. At that point, it is only a matter of what type of punishment you will receive.

I routinely appear in front of one of the toughest, most miserable judges ever to set foot in a court room. He apparently doesn't have much use for pro se litigants, but he soon found out I knew more than my opponents. I think he actually gets a kick out of watching me chew them up and spit them out.

Whatever he asks for, I give him. My favorite expression is "whatever pleases the Court." He always gives me that look like I'm brown nosing him, but he can never say I disrupted his court or what he wanted to do.

That's the key.....what he wanted to do. Not in the mood for long arguments? Nothing further, your Honor. See ya. I can't imagine what he would do to me if I argued with him. Instead, he says "Good Morning, Mr. Bruno, nice to see you again," whenever he comes in and sees me in the hearing room.

I'll win a few, lose a few. Everybody does. I know he'll give me a fair shake. If I did what Coltfan did, I guarantee you it would be a "My Cousin Vinny" moment, he would jail me, no questions asked, no doubt in my mind.

He always thanks me sarcastically for "giving me a brief that my grandchildren will find in my dead hands because I didn't live long enough to read it." He always gets a laugh from the other people waiting to have their cases heard.

Logged

I am not an attorney. Any information I post is strictly my opinion and should be treated as such.

One lesson everybody needs to learn here is that judges have a lot of power, and it is within their discretion to exercise it. Most judges will treat you well and with respect as long as they feel that you are doing likewise. That doesn't mean they will rule in your favor if you are wrong, it just means they won't take you out to the woodshed.

The worst thing you can do in court is make a judge think you have no respect for him / her or the system. At that point, it is only a matter of what type of punishment you will receive.

I think you are giving too much credit and weight to the civil litigation system. It is mostly a useless and powerless entity. Judgments and sanctions are rarely ever actually paid to the prevailing party. 90% of judgments go completely uncollected. So in such a system, how would anyone ever define these clowns as having "a lot of power". They do not.

They only have power if you perceive them as such. Once you recognize how silly the civil litigation system is in our country, then you really begin to laugh at how pompous and ridiculous most lawyers and judges really are.

You are completely missing the point. They DID offer to settle and coltfan refused all 6 of them. This whole debacle did not stem from the collection agency or their law firm refusing to settle. It came about when the Plaintiff (coltfan) DID refuse to settle.

The bottom line is just because you CAN do something does not mean you SHOULD do it.

I am not missing any point. I am fully aware of the situation with Coltfan. If you will re-read the entire post I made above with normal reading comprehension, you will understand that I am talking about the collection agency spending $33,000+ on legal fees and the lesson they likely learned from this process.

Does anyone think they are going to be eager to fight the next 10 FDCPA lawsuits the same way and spend $300,000 in legal fees over collection debts that are worth perhaps 1/20 of that amount. If so, they will likely go bankrupt and no longer be bothering anyone with their FDCPA violations in the future. This is a simple business decision. Does it really make sense to spend $33,000 on something with a value that is a fraction of that?

Coltfan says that the settlement offers were made at the last minute right before trial and were not serious. The collection agency also likely had spent $15,000+ by that point. Maybe the collection agency will get serious earlier in the process before they waste all of their money on legal fees. Imagine if they had offered $1,000 plus deletion very early in the process before they had any legal fees. That is what most of them do. They do it because that is typically the smart financial business decision as soon as they get served.

Some say it is 80%. Others estimate it at 90%. The only judgments that typically get paid are by company's that have assets. It is much harder for a company to move or hide assets. Individuals will try much harder to make collection impossible.

Here was my 5 second search to find you a source. If you want more sources, try it yourself.

It has been my experience that judgment owners typically give up within months of "winning" their judgment. Or they never even make an attempt to collect on their judgment.It costs money to try to enforce a judgment and most judgment owners realize that the amount they can possibly collect is actually lower than the additional legal fees for a garnishment order. Seriously, there are so many exceptions to income garnishment that you can spend $5,000 getting the order and then get $50 per month. Does that really make sense? You will go bankrupt trying to collect a judgment in this country.

Why such a sarcastic response? I asked because I thought perhaps you had specific source that you were citing.

It is one of those well known facts that just about everyone knows, similar to "90% of black people vote democrat". It is not something that most people need to have sourced. Everyone knows that most judgments never result in any payment.

It is one of those well known facts that just about everyone knows, similar to "90% of black people vote democrat". It is not something that most people need to have sourced. Everyone knows that most judgments never result in any payment.

I agree that most judgments go unpaid. I was simply interested in the possible source for your "90 percent" reference. "Just about everybody knows" does not make something a fact. And "just about everybody" does not know. The majority of citizens have not been sued for debt collection, so chances are that they wouldn't know about judgments.

I was hoping the direction of this thread would be the lessons learned from Coltfan's experience.

I think I made it abundantly clear from the start and throughout the whole process that I was intentionally being over the top and as offensive as I could, because I had found a collection agency, that its owner, is basically makes the rules and is the police of debt collection in Arkansas.

I did it because I knew I could handle anything and everything that came my way, including the current battle and long odds I now face. If anybody needed what happened to me at this juncture to "get it" that unless you go in 100% with eyes wide open you are taking great risks needs their head examined.

I've gotten several PM's and personal emails from people that I never thought in a thousand years would have ever told me how bad I got hosed by the 8th Circuit. Bruno is right (which I knew), you need to realize just how much power certain judges have. That is something to make sure you always keep clearly in mind.

With all that said, I was/am truly stunned that the 8th circuit actually ordered me to pay attorneys fees to a debt collector that admitted they broke the law and completely changed their whole way of doing business, when I broke not a single court order, law, or written rule of the court.

Logged

LexisNexis® Legal Newsroom- 05-17-2013 | 10:11 AM --

JONESBORO, Ark. - A federal judge in Arkansas on May 15 ruled that dismissal of a consumer's lawsuit against a debt collector is not proper because although the consumer posted messages on a website "in an odious manner," valid First Amendment concerns exist (Brandon Scroggin v. Credit Bureau of Jonesboro Inc., No. 12-0128, E.D. Ark.; 2013 U.S. Dist. Lexis 69070).

Here are some lessons I have learned, not just from Coltfan's tribulations.

1. Judges can do weird things. I think that is exactly why I never wanted to be a lawyer. I had a case where I sued a law firm, the firm conducted itself in atrocious ways, such as filing deliberately false statements in papers, and having unlicensed attorneys, etc. In the end, the judge threw out the case and forced me to pay for a depo in which one of the attorneys questioning me falsely claimed to be licensed in the state, when she wasn't.

2. It is best not to get a judge upset, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE PRO SE! The lawyers all know the judge, and can get away with stuff for which a judge would crucify a pro se. So, if you are pro se, you really need to dot all your i's and cross your t's, because if you don't, the judge will hammer you. The judge might give you the shaft anyway, just because you are the deadbeat and the other guy is a respectable lawyer, BUT DON'T GIVE THE JUDGE ANY EXCUSE AT ALL TO SHAFT YOU!

3. Be careful about giving the other side too much information. It can come back to bite you. A blind gambler warned me about that once, and it was wise advice.

4. Find a strategy which works FOR YOU! Nobody here will be in the courtroom with you, or face the judge with you. If anything goes wrong, nobody here will help pay the cost. The best strategy may be to lie low, or to negotiate a settlement you can live with, or it may be to fight like holy HECK!

5. Remember, there are folks on this board who have spent far more time studying the cases than the other side has, know consumer law like the backs of their hand, and have still lost cases where they had what a gambler calls the stone cold nuts.